Gwent Closed Beta - Hands-On with the First Five Days

AusGamers has been a part of the Gwent closed beta since it went live and writes:

"You can build custom decks from the four main factions in Northern Realms, Scoia'tael, Skellige and Monster, but starter decks for all four are also available for you to jump right in. The game follows familiar digital CCG rules in that winning nets you rewards, and collating some of those rewards into a large stash -- in this case, 100 pieces of ore to offer a troll who is holding a Keg full of Gwent goodies -- is how you currently get the bulk of your cards. Each Keg will also always come with at least three legendary cards, but of these you can only choose one. Further, as you progress in level you’ll start unlocking cards on your quest to your next level, which is dictated by a progress bar with varying numbers of question marks depending on which level you’re now going for. My push for level 2 had a lot, yet each time I hit one, I got zip. Not sure if it was just a gauntlet, or a glitch, but either way it was a bit frustrating.

You can also break down unwanted cards, and then construct news ones -- provided you have enough of the sweet scrap ingredient they need. Obviously the better the card, the more scrap you need -- this is called Milling. Cards are split between Gold, Silver and Bronze. Gold cards -- mostly -- can’t be touched by any game-changing effects such as weather cards, the ever-damaging Scorch (which burns out the highest point card on the battlefield), Dimeritium Bomb (which sets all non-Gold units back to their original strength) and so on. Some cards can change card types, such as any Gold to Silver, or any Bronze or Silver to Gold, like the handy Promote card. Moreover, other cards gain power when Gold cards are played (or promoted), which can have you learning early strats around when you should be playing certain Gold cards, or placing Bronze or Silver cards that buff after Golds are played or promoted."